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From the Los Altos Town Crier:

Feb 7, 2018

Mrs. [Gertrud] Kraenkel and her husband, John, opened the Black Forest Inn restaurant in 1955, creating an eatery that specialized in John’s German cuisine and Gertrud’s to-die-for baked goods. They operated Black Forest for 13 years before selling the First Street restaurant in 1968. Ristorante Bella Vita, an Italian restaurant, currently occupies the site.

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Lured by opportunity and the start of a new life, the couple relocated to California in 1955. John, who attended culinary school in Germany, sold polish sausages on the streets of San Francisco.

One day while traveling south, the couple “wandered off,” McInnis said, saw a sign for Los Altos and ended up in the downtown village.

The couple walked into a real estate office and struck up a conversation with Alan Cranston, a future U.S. senator who was a local leader at the time.

They ended up purchasing the 376 First St. property to open their restaurant.

The relatively small restaurant became a big meeting spot for some of the great pioneers of Silicon Valley. According to Bo Lojek’s “History of Semiconductor Engineering,” Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corp., was instrumental in “forming a group of dissidents and acted as their spokesman. The group congregated at the Black Forest restaurant in Los Altos.”

That group became known as the legendary “Traitorous Eight,” a team of bright engineers who mapped out their plans to leave Shockley Labs to start Fairchild Semiconductor.

Adding to the Black Forest’s welcoming environment was a painted mural of a German village and countryside, the result of Mrs. Kraenkel’s artistic touch. She also would paint the restaurant windows at Christmastime.

Her baked goods were extremely popular, according to McInnis.

“They only sold her apple pies by the slice,” she said, otherwise they would have quickly run out of pies.

Dec 10, 1997

The Black Forest European Restaurant on First Street reopened about a month ago. Established more than 35 years ago, it’s one of the oldest restaurants in Los Altos. And when it came upon hard times and closed its doors for awhile, lovers of German food couldn’t get their sauerbraten, wiener schnitzel or bratwurst unless they went out of town – far out of town.